Deuteronomy 32:1-47
Who Do You Think You’re Dealing With?

I. Ever Met Someone Who Turned Out To Be Different From What You Thought?
1. Maybe you under-estimated someone you thought was average but he turned out to be a big shot.
2. You start talking about your health to someone who turns out to be a doctor.
3. It’s important to know who you are dealing with. In World War 2, a US general was detained.
4. A common theme on TV is an encounter in which one person doesn’t know who he’s dealing with.
5. Hebrews 13:2 says be hospitable because some people have “entertained angels unaware.”
6. Jesus said, “As you’ve done it to the least of these you’ve done it unto Me” (Matthew 25:40).
II. God’s Eternal Majesty(32:1-4)
A. Why We Sing
1. This chapter is meant to be sung. Many people think singing is for our entertainment.
2. Many people think the way to teach about God is with a catechism, or teaching, maybe a book.
3. Some people can’t imagine that singing is part of learning about God. They think it’s too soulish.
4. Songs give expression of the soul better than teaching and catechisms. He gives them a song.
B. Praise
1. People need to hear about the greatness of God. Praising God refreshes.
2. C. S. Lewis, “the humblest and at the same time the most balanced and capacious minds praise most, while the … malcontents praise the least. … Praise seems to be inner health made audible.”
3. God’s work is perfect because all His ways are justice. God defines what justice is.
4. God is faithful. He keeps His commitments. Psalm 15 says the faithful swear to their own hurt.
5. God swore to save His people and kept that commitment at the cost of the cross.
6. If you really care about something you don’t feel complete until you get to tell others about it.
III. God’s Past Generosity (32:5-18)
2. God is their father who created them, who made them and established them; put them on a rock.
3. “The Lord’s portion is His people.” He chose to be a father to them, to care for them.
4. He finds us in a dry and weary land where no water is, nothing life-giving in this world.
5. Keeping them as “the apple of his eye,” protecting them like we instinctively protect our eyes.
6. The Lord caused even the rocks to produce sweetness and refreshing for His people.
7. Dave Ramsey says that “generosity is God’s way of creating community.”
8. No healthy person sees the generosity of his parents and thinks he can get a better deal with others.
9. The idolatrous ignore God’s grace and think mammon is promising them everything they want.
10. They should have been “Jeshurun,” “Upright.” They grew fat on all the tofu and mutton they were fed.
11. Cotton Mather: “Godliness begat prosperity and the daughter devoured the mother.”
12. God blesses us with the money and the family, and then we make the things He gave us into idols.
13. Our idols are “strange,” “detestable,” demonic, and unimpressive. They make us unmindful of the Rock.
IV. God’s Present Jealousy (32:19-33)
1. Do you think you’re dealing with someone who has a right to be jealous, who owns you?
2. Our idolatry is a “provocation” and so He spurns us. He hides His face if you’re chasing some idol.
3. His anger is like fire. It burns down to the dead, devouring the planet. He heaps up disasters.
4. He would have wiped out His idolatrous people but He didn’t want His enemies to boast.
5. God in His jealousy gives us over to enemies when we serve idols but He won’t let them prevail.
V. God’s Future Mercy And Severity (32:34-47)
1. What is laid up in store with God. “Vengeance is mine.” Recompense. He will pay back.
2. “For the time when their foot shall slip.” God orders whatever “accident” overtakes His enemies.
3. He’ll repay those who hate Him, shooting His arrows into them, pouring out their blood.
4. Severity on His enemies makes His mercy on His people stand out. Mercy is displayed over severity.
5. “The Lord will vindicate His people.” He will show them to be right; that they were right to trust Him.
6. Our idols can’t help us. But the Lord will help us after destroying His enemies. So, rejoice.
7. He atones “His land, His people.” His land is His people. So all their sin is washed away.
VI. Invitation: That’s the song that we’re to take to heart. Do you tremble and rejoice? You’re dealing with a God who kills and makes alive, who wounds and heals, who ordains when foots slip. We have this song so we’ll know Him; so we’ll do His word; so we’ll know God, put away our idols (like money), give to Him our life, our soul, our all and establish our life on Him, our Rock, the Rock of Ages.